British 15-year-old gained access to intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be head of CIA, court hears A 15-year-old gained access to plans for intelligence operations in Afghanistan and Iran by pretending to be the head of the CIA to gain access to his computers, a court has heard. From the bedroom of the Leicestershire home he shared with his mother, Kane Gamble used “social engineering” – where a person builds up a picture of information and uses it manipulate others into handing over more – to access the personal and work accounts of some of America's...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Justin G. Liverman, 24, of Morehead City, North Carolina, pleaded guilty today for his role in a harassment scheme that targeted senior U.S. government officials. Liverman’s plea admits guilt to a conspiracy to commit unauthorized computer intrusions, identity theft, and telephone harassment. According to the statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, beginning in November 2015, Liverman conspired to attempt to intimidate and harass U.S. officials and their families by gaining unauthorized access to victims’ online accounts, among other things. For example, Liverman publicly posted online documents and personal information unlawfully obtained from a victim’s personal...

Washington, D.C. Â– Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, plans to step down after more than a decade.Penny Nance, CEO and President of Concerned Women for America, had this to say: â€œUnder the leadership of Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood has grown to push one agenda Â– abortion above all else Â– while throwing aside any inkling of actual medical care. Cancer screenings and STD testing have all declined under her reign.â€œUnder Cecileâ€™s leadership, Planned Parenthood has been exposed for refusing to report statutory rape and abuse, for aiding sex traffickers, for taking money to abort black babies, and for illegally...

President Trump expressed frustration with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for the GOP’s failure to repeal and replace ObamaCare and vowed a “historic” corporate tax cut in a private meeting with conservatives Monday night. The president also expressed support for Pittsburgh Steelers player Alejandro Villanueva, the lone player from his team to stand with his hand on his heart for the national anthem before Sunday's game. The dinner featured a cadre of Washington’s conservative leaders, all of whom remain staunch allies of Trump, including Concerned Women for America CEO Penny Nance, Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser, Americans for Prosperity...

AT&T has agreed to bring 3,000 outsourced jobs home to the U.S. The union that represents AT&T workers, the Communications Workers of America, said Thursday that it's reached a tentative agreement with AT&T Southwest -- a regional landline arm of the company -- that includes a commitment to hire American workers to do jobs that were previously done by contractors overseas. The four-year deal also covers wage hikes, paid parental leave, healthcare and benefits for 20,000 AT&T Southwest workers across five southern states. The exact terms of the deal still need to be approved by a union members vote. AT&T...

Earlier this month a federal court in California ruled that a farmer plowing his land without a permit from the federal government is breaking the law. In 2013, the Army Corps of Engineers, without any notice or due process, ordered the owners of Duarte Nursery to cease use of their land for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act (CWA). The violation: plowing. The California court agreed with the federal government’s action, despite the fact the CWA specifically exempts normal agricultural activities like plowing from regulation. This overreaching assertion of federal power is not an isolated incident. For decades, the EPA...

36,000 Verizon workers have walked off the job Wednesday after failing to reach a new labor agreement. This is the largest strike in the United States since Verizon workers last walked off the job in 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That strike involved 45,000 workers. Most of the striking workers service the company's landline phone business and FiOS broadband network -- not the much larger Verizon Wireless network. They have gone without a contract since August, and their union, the Communication Workers of America, says it is fighting to get Verizon to come to the table...

While everyone was voting in Colorado elections Tuesday, scant attention was paid to how our U.S. Senators voted on a measure that is extremely important to our entire way of life. We'll give you a hint - it's water. A bill by our Wyoming neighbor, Republican U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, would have required the EPA to rewrite the egregious Waters of the United States rule to give states and the agriculture industry more protection. WOTUS, as it's known, is the latest and worstest regulation issued by the Obama administration to regulate ponds and ditches in neighborhoods and farms as navigable...

The rally is scheduled for Thursday, 12 to 1 in Lafayette Park. Speakers include Senator Ted Cruz, Gary Bauer and Faith McDonnell. It's sponsored by CWA, Concerned Women for America. If you're in the D.C. area, maybe you'll find the time to stop by and show your support for the Americans abandoned by Obama to his new Iranian buddies. Here are some of their storiesSaeed Abedini The wife of imprisoned pastor Saeed Abedini sent a letter to her husband on the day of their 11th wedding anniversary, describing the "excruciating pain" she's in without him while he's being held...

Attorneys general from thirteen states filed a lawsuit Monday challenging EPA's new rule defining the waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), asserting that the rule expands the scope of clean water regulations to lands that are dry much of the year and increases the federal government's authority over land use. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, who joined in the lawsuit, noted that 35 states have filed comments in opposition to the rule and several other attorneys general are considering filing challenges. The EPA is overstepping...

Bernie Sanders has picked up a key endorsement as one of the nation’s most influential labor leaders has announced his support for the Democratic presidential candidate. The Sanders campaign made the announcement in a statement: In another show of union support for Bernie Sanders, one of the nation’s most influential labor leaders on Friday endorsed the Democratic Party presidential candidate. Larry Cohen, the past president of the Communications Workers of America, gave his backing to Sanders at a news conference held here in a local union hall. “This is not a close call,” Cohen said at the news conference. “This...

When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, it was exercising its power to regulate interstate commerce by prohibiting discharges into the nation’s “navigable waters.” If a body of water could be used to transport goods from one state to another, it was covered by the Act. Like so many other statutes enacted over the last 80 years – that is, since the advent of the administrative state under FDR – the Clean Water Act (CWA) depends on bureaucratic interpretation and enforcement. The two entities involved with the CWA are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of...

Concerned Women for America (CWA) was founded in 1979 by Beverly LaHaye, wife of conservative activist—and later Left Behind co-author—Tim LaHaye. Irritated by the ascendance of Betty Friedan’s National Organization for Women (NOW), LaHaye founded CWA to represent traditionalist women who balked at feminist “liberation.” Since its inception, the group has worked to bring “biblical values” to bear on the American political process, with special attention to issues of sex and gender. Over the past three decades, CWA has become a powerful political force, claiming over half a million members. Leslie Dorrough Smith is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at...

Lawmakers are up in arms over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal that they fear could give federal officials expansive new powers over private property and farmland. The EPA is seeking to redefine what bodies of water fall under the agency’s jurisdiction for controlling pollution. The scope of the final Clean Water Act (CWA) rule is of critical importance, as any area covered would require a federal permit for certain activities. The rule is facing a groundswell of opposition from lawmakers, who fear the EPA is engaged in a “land grab” that could stop farmers and others from building fences,...

Members of the Small Business Committee in the House of Representatives urged the Environmental Protection Agency to go back to the drawing board on a proposed rule aimed at clarifying bodies of water that fall under the Clean Water Act. In March, the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed a rule to define what “waters of the United States” fall under federal jurisdiction. The rule would include smaller bodies of water including streams, riverbanks, wetlands and floodplains that may have access to larger bodies of water. Republican lawmakers have opposed the rule since its inception, saying the...

It was the kind of meeting that conspiratorial conservative bloggers dream about. A month after President Barack Obama won reelection, top brass from three dozen of the most powerful groups in liberal politics met at the headquarters of the National Education Association (NEA), a few blocks north of the White House. Brought together by the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Communication Workers of America (CWA), and the NAACP, the meeting was invite-only and off-the-record. Despite all the Democratic wins in November, a sense of outrage filled the room as labor officials, environmentalists, civil rights activists, immigration reformers, and a panoply of other...

Union bosses are not happy about Obamacare. Last week, the leaders of three major U.S. unions, including James P. Hoffa of the Teamsters, sent a scathing open letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leaders in Congress. They warn that if the law does not change, Obamacare will "destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members along with millions of other hardworking Americans." Clearly they feel betrayed. Here is the first paragraph of their letter: "When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans...

Cablevision has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in an investigation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) about complaints involving 22 former workers that were allegedly wrongfully terminated. This battle between the media giant and the Communications Workers of America is hardly new information as they have been fighting for the past year, but this most recent move is telling specifically because of what it implies about the authority of the NLRB. A different case, National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, a court is considering the idea that the NLRB’s members, or at least 3 of them,...

Let’s pretend that in the spring of 2012 Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, John Engler of the Business Roundtable, Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity, and Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association began to organize an assembly of right-leaning groups. Let’s pretend that in the months since there had been not one but two meetings where these luminaries joined with representatives of Christians United For Israel, the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Tea Party Express, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and the American Petroleum Institute to discuss strategy and promote a series of “structural...

AT&T Inc, the largest U.S phone company, said 20,000 employees represented by the Communications Workers of America have begun a strike on the East and West Coast. The West contract covers more than 17,000 wireline employees in California and Nevada, while the East contract covers more than 3,000 in Connecticut, AT&T said today in a statement. Separately, AT&T reached a tentative agreement with the CWA in contract negotiations for more than 22,000 land-line employees in the southeastern U.S.